With you (unecessarily) going off on the pronoun thingy, still have my doubts, thank you though
Ummm… Bread and circuses anyone?
LOL…the difference is these are legit.
Gen X’er here. I think the younger ones are right to feel anxious these days. I daresay I’d be fraught with it if I were their age. At least we just got on with things and figured it out on our own. Nowadays people can’t seem to make a single decision or form an opinion without having to ask the internet what it thinks. (Or A.I)
That’s true, and so many rules & regulations and woke ways to follow.
Actually, I would venture to say that puts them (X’ers) a step up on previous generations, while the older generations would have to research the knowledge / info they sought, the younger generations have it at their finger tips, and only their social / political leanings would dictate the type of info they were researching.
I was just thinking that this morning when we were meeting for coffee.
Discussion came round to a TV series someone wanted to watch but could not remember the name. They remembered it stared Ben Miller so it was a matter of whipping out the old phone, looking up his page on Wikipedia and browsing his filmography list - job done in less than a minute.
When I was young information like that would be a trip to the library at the very least.
And, forgotten again in the next minute? heaven forbid there is no signal or a flat battery.
No ,it was Professor T but it doesn’t matter if I forget because the information will still be there
Do you forget to fill your car with fuel? I don’t forget to charge my phone.
That story about using a smart phone to find info sums up the benefits that the younger generations simply take for granted. Convenience. It is demonstrated in smart phones, in food delivery - in all sorts of relatively minor things. A bit of convenience.
In the meantime Gen Y and younger can see that bigger, global issues are not being addressed. The brilliant minds of the world solve minor issues of convenience. They appear unwilling to tackle the big issues. If I were younger and reflected on that failure then I too would express doom and gloom.
There are points for and against Raven…
There were very few outlets of information in the auld’ days and most of them were trusted sources. These days we are overloaded with IT and finding a trusted source that doesn’t have an agenda is getting increasingly more difficult…
Not so bad for discovering an actor, but not good for discovering the truth about say…Vaccines, Global warming, the wars in the Ukraine and Gaza etc…
The minefield of information can be very manipulative…
My point still stands , but so does yours. The real issue is, are we looking for the truth, or do we just want our point to be validated ? You can find some type of validation from some source on most anything you do / say.
The boomers were the luckiest generation because they had the most hope and fulfilment of dreams. I’m a Gen X and we definitely had it harder, but the next generation didn’t have many of our opportunities and were also saddled with expectations of high academic achievement along with the corresponding debt, little job security, high cost housing and later retirement ages. Alongside that there’s climate change, overpopulation, a shift of future wealth from West to East, the AI jobs threat, weird online dating and social scenes and corresponding angst, cyber-everything. I could go on and on.
I wouldn’t say that the boomers were necessarily the healthiest, I think that’s in fact the pre-war generation. But the boomers had the most optimistic and stable lives despite cold war threats.
Aye, but at some point, someone / people/ group will step forward because of necessity, when the pain becomes deep enough, it will bring about the needed change, everything evolves, and it is that pain which is usually the driving force.
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.”
-----G. Michael Hopf
Yes Annie, it’s surprising how lucky you can get when you work from 15 to 21 as an apprentice on ridiculous low wages and virtually no sick pay to become a skilled man and then work 12 hours a day to earn enough to buy your own property and raise a family. Although there were no silly things to spend yer money on like subscription TV, thousand pound smartphones, and fancy motors…But then, there was no such thing as ‘credit’ we had to save up for stuff and do without until we could afford it…
Blame the government and the EU for the mess that followed and us Brexiteers are trying to put things right, but it’s an uphill struggle while all our stuff is made somewhere else.
Strange how future generations got so unlucky after they sent all their young people to university instead of doing proper work and pay tax and allowed patriotism to become a dirty word…And how come the population got so unmanageable? Probably because most of the Brits have become ponces and lazy B’stards and would rather import people to do the work that they should be doing.
Don’t matter what “Gen” you are, you just have to “Work” through it!
I said boomers had hope and the fulfilment of dreams. You lived at a time when things were constantly getting better. It may have started hard but boomer time was a unique point in history where improvements to standard of living, political stability, world peace (despite the cold war) were at a peak. You’ve had a life of work but also holidays, free healthcare, some happiness (I hope) and food in the shops that over time you were increasingly able to afford more of. Although it’s not your personal circumstance I was talking about but the nurturing environment that became more protective and nurturing during the best years of your lifetime. It’s become less so for Gen X. For example many of us will have to work for many years after the old retirement age. Many Gen X did buy houses but were stuck in negative equity or sky high mortgages. Some managed to avoid student loans, others have a life of debt from early years. Yet now for Gen Y and beyond there is a huge pressure to have it all in a way that didn’t exist in the past. You can’t live without the stupid smartphones and internet and this will become ever more the case in our surveillance society.
Boomers were more able to have a simple happy life. I do feel sorry for Gen Y because they do seem to have inherited a very complicated version of the world with so many loose ends. While I worry about the future I don’t see Gen X or Gen Y living as long as our parents’ generation. Some Gen Z I know seem to already be developing health conditions previously associated with middle age, they are also very confused about life and more prone to preventable forms of mental illness. Most boomers I know are happier and more well adjusted than later generations. The fun is certainly going out of life with social media, surveillance and a reduction of in-person communication.
Perhaps people of this generation were aware of the alternative
What was life like in workhouses?
Conditions were cramped with beds squashed together, hardly any room to move and with little light. When they were not in their sleeping corners, the inmates were expected to work.
Us, and our kids have never had it so good, let the generations amalgamate, and celebrate our good fortune.
No surprise there then Annie with all the chemicals and rubbish food that comes from the other side of the world, not to mention the sit down jobs, TV rubbish and computer nonsense.
It’s like living in another world now.
The boomers are happy because they remember how things used to be, a pint down the pub with your mates, even with the local copper, a kick about on the field, empty roads, and just the gossip around the village to worry about, (whose sleeping with who ) none of this 24 hour rolling news. It’s enough to make anyone want to commit harry carry…
But I can see the point that you are making Annie, and it’s all down to progress. Nothing ever remains the same…